Posted
by
Zonkon Wednesday October 03, 2007 @11:33AM
from the it-doesn't-look-good-man dept.

Dr. Eggman writes "Gamasutra breaks the bad news from over at Midway. Midway states that Epic Games' Unreal Tournament 3 for the PS3 has been delayed into the first quarter of 2008. No official reason has been give for the delay, as only CEO David Zucker of Midway has released information. The PC version is still on track for a November release."Additional details from a Midway Conference call are available on Next Generation.

I wonder if this will have a cascade effect. How many games for the PS3 plan on using the UT3 engine and will they be delayed as well?Since the PC version is on track I would guess that it is an engine performance issue and not a content issue...In other words it looks as if the Cell programming model is bitting back.

Right. It's the delay of the engine that really screwed over the ps3's lineup this year. The non-UT3 games seem to ether ship on time or with small delays of a week or two. Pretty much what you'd expect. Guitar Hero 3,Folklore, Rachet, and Eye of Judgement all hit this month, so i'm happy.

The UT3 thing is probabaly a warning for the future that you don't want to put all your eggs in a 3rd party engine for a launching console. Just too many potential problems.

It keeps getting worse for Sony and the PS3, it seems like all the good games have been delayed until 2008 or later. I won't be buying one until Final Fantasy 13 comes out.

By then it'll be a more reasonable price. I paid full price and I feel okay with it. It's a nice machine. Doubles as a linux boxen/truly open media center. It has soem okay games no major unit movers yet but I'm hoping MGS4 and FFXII will bring it some respect.

Both Halo 3 and Heavenly Sword are just fine in terms of length. Heavenly Sword, for that matter, is even better than Halo 3, because it doesn't have a level like the High Charity level. I'll take a shorter, but amazingly fun, game any day of the week, thank you very much.

Notice how I didn't even mention MotoStorm? The reason is because I enjoyed it and didn't feel like it was a waste of my money. My point, that you completely missed, was that Heavenly Sword wasn't worth the money. The pretty graphics don't increase the replayability at all. MotoStorm and Halo 3 both have a ton more replayability - and I don't feel like either was a waste of money like Heavenly Sword.

Mark Rein responded to this and said that midway was announcing the delay because "they have an obligation to their shareholders to let them know about the possibility of a delay" but Epic is still trying to get the PS3 version shipped before the end of 2007. He also said that the delay will mean that the PS3 version ships with all the maps that the PC version will have.

Dang! I was going to post that (like I did in the comments of my own firehose submission. Well, here's the link [epicgames.com] anyways. Also, he said the PC version will have a demo come out before release.

Yeah, it sounds like this story was from an investor conference call, not a press release. I thought it was a federal SEC thing that public companies were required to report the worst possible cases to investors? It doesn't mean that they'll necessarily happen that way. A lot of companies file "doom and gloom" things like this for stock purposes, but nobody in the media usually pays much attention to it.

Yes, it's currently expensive, and that's fine if you don't want to buy one, but ultimately this delay is nothing to do with its lack of popularity or high price, rather everything to do with getting the engine up to speed on the PS3. It's still coming out before the 360 version, even if that is only to do with the 360 needing extra time to support mods, so it's not like they're leaving the PS3 version until last; if they thought no-one owned a PS3, they wouldn't be making a PS3 version at all.

"These technical issues are now completed at a core level in our engine, and now that we have the systems working, looking ahead to 2008, we expect the PS3 versions of our titles to ship day and date with our other versions," [CEO David Zucker] said.

Ah, fair enough. I had assumed that meant for future titles using the engine, considering Sony apparently had a publishing deal regarding UT3, and the article mentions there's still no release date for the 360 version, so I guess it's just a waiting game to see what gets published and when.

Did anyone stop to think that the reason they have delayed the release of the PS3 version of the game is that nobody owns a PS3? It's the lowest selling system in the current generation, eclipsed by both the XBOX 360 and the Wii. The primary reason for this is that there is such a high price tag. I think that Sony made a mistake when they decided to go with such high-end hardware for their console. For the price of a PS3, I could buy both a 360 and a Wii. So, would I buy one console, and limit myself to the

Perfect dark wasn't stalled simply because the n64 had low numbers.The PS3 launch price in Canada is within $50 of the PS2 launch price.

Rare was pretty much tied to Nintendo, and had no choice but to make games for the Nintendo64. They hadn't made a game for another system until they were purchased by Microsoft. Also, living in Canada, I see the launch price of the PS3 to be about 2 times higher than the PS2. I remember the PS2 being $299, while the PS3 was $599 and $699. Not sure where your information comes from, but I think its false.

The PS3 might be a technically nice machine, but it is supposed to be a gaming machine, not a com

Also, living in Canada, I see the launch price of the PS3 to be about 2 times higher than the PS2. I remember the PS2 being $299, while the PS3 was $599 and $699. Not sure where your information comes from, but I think its false.

No my information is not false go back and look at the launch price, then adjust for inflation. You'll find the 20gb version is withing $50.

As we've seen time and time again, you can not adjust for inflation when it comes to consoles or PCs.

I'm not sure why this is, but there is some weird "stasis bubble" around the price which is why my first console (Atari 2600) and my latest console (Wii) both cost $249.99 (and each came with one game).

As we've seen time and time again, you can not adjust for inflation when it comes to consoles or PCs.

I'm not sure why this is, but there is some weird "stasis bubble" around the price which is why my first console (Atari 2600) and my latest console (Wii) both cost $249.99 (and each came with one game).

Inflation does work with consoles. It works with everything as it's a statement of the amount of things you can buy in general with a certain amount of money. So a amount of money at time X is worth a differen

I'm comparing the launch prices of consoles. Not the current price of old-generation to the launch price of next-generation.

People who buy next-generation consoles in their first year are comparing it to the cost of the last-generation console in its first year. People who wait to buy the last-generation console shortly after the next-generation console is released, will wait until the PS3 cost less than $200 to purchase it.

The PS3 might be a technically nice machine, but it is supposed to be a gaming machine, not a complete home media solution.

The PS3 is whatever you want it to be. It can be one of or a combination of gaming, Linux PC, media centre, movie player (DVD, BD and even movie files like mp4), Web browser (not that great but it does work) and it can work well with a PSP (if you have one). The one thing you should get if you are considering buying one or even an Xbox360 is a HDTV and IMHO the bigger the better (depe

Low install base is certainly a reason not to ship. Depending on the current investment a company might choose to go ahead and support a platform and then drop it for the future, or focus on the high volume products which require immediate attention and satisfy the smaller customer base later when the cycle allows time to do so.

Although I can see your reasoning I question the fact that the PC version is coming out first. What is the order of release to platforms?

Running any current game on a PC requires relatively high-end hardware which means that consumers have to continue to invest more money for upgrades to continue buying new games. I'm ignoring those that restrict themselves to older releases who can stay with the same hardware for longer.

If this was a case about releasing to the more affordable platform and therefore

> Running any current game on a PC requires relatively high-end hardware which means that consumers have to continue to invest more money for upgrades to continue buying new games. I'm ignoring those that restrict themselves to older releases who can stay with the same hardware for longer.

I find PC gaming a lot cheaper but then again I fall into the category you ignore. I don't buy a PC for games. I buy it for my work. I do need/fancy a decent one. I don't factor the basic PC price into cost of gaming. A

I don't buy a PC for games. I buy it for my work. I do need/fancy a decent one. I don't factor the basic PC price into cost of gaming.

I'll just write off the cost of my PS3 as a DVD/Blu-ray player because I need/fancy a decent one. Gotta have a good upconverter for that new HD set!

Also, I stick to older games. The purchases are usually classics and inexpensive too. I do have a couple of last gen consoles that I bought used. Now there are enough good games for them that don't charge a premium price. This makes more sense for me since I am more of a casual gamer who likes to explore several games than commit to any single one.

New games are expensive, so I'm only going to buy the best $5.99 used PS2 games that I missed from the past six years, being a N64/Gamecube owner.

This makes more sense for me since I am more of a casual gamer who likes to explore several games than commit to any single one.

I could build a small house out of all the game boxes I'd have with the money you spent on WTF you're smoking.

If this was a case about releasing to the more affordable platform and therefore hit a larger customer base then I question the choice of releasing the PC version when they did. Would the not hit one of the other consoles first if this was the case?

Yeah, installed base isn't the only consideration for them. Epic knows that the PC is their base and always has been. UT is a PC franchise, so it would be a pretty big slap in the face to their primary fanbase if they were to release for a console first. Not to mention they have a lot more experience working with the PC than they do with the consoles, so the consoles seem like they would naturally take a bit longer to get working optimally.

Sure, gamers will buy multiple consoles, but that's what, maybe 10% of the total market? That also doesn't mean you have to buy all the consoles when they're brand new.Last generation, I bought a PS2 less than 6 months after its US launch. When the Game Cube's price dropped, and there were some nice bundles available, I bought one of those - about 2 years later. The Xbox, on the other hand, wasn't purchased until about a year before the 360 launched. At that point, I'd pretty much finished with the Game

Why would you buy two consoles and limit yourself to only the games available on those two consoles? If you want the widest possible variety of games, you buy every console every generation.

Well... considering I usually only buy one (or maybe two) consoles any generation:

1) Price - not everyone has lots of extra income they want to spend on games. Especially considering the price of current gen games.2) Space - not everyone has lots of extra space for spare consoles to hang out in. Especially if you are

I wonder if this lends any support to Silicon Knight's claims that the engine wasn't ready for them, and that the PS3 engine build was also way off target when they licensed it.
It seems they're still aiming for a December release, but as a public company need to inform shareholders if they may miss that target. On the plus side, they've managed to get every map from the PC version working on the PS3, contrary to their earlier statements.

I don't think so. SK was claiming that EPIC purposefully witheld things so that Gears of War would look better than the competition. UT3 is an EPIC game though. It's their in-house engine... Why would they withold from themselves?

This probably won't help SK's lawsuit, and might in fact hurt it. They have two things to prove in their lawsuit - that the engine wasn't ready and that Epic did that intentionally. This proves the engine wasn't up to snuff, but might hurt them because it shows that Epic itself was affected by the engine's preparedness, so why would they do this intentionally? Of course, the conspiracy theorists in the crowd can fire up their argument that Epic is doing this to help deflate the lawsuit. If the lawsuit s

Actually, I believe SK's main claim is that Epic failed to deliver a working 360 build by the date stipulated in their contract. The whole "they were hoarding it themselves for GOW" is just fluff meant to sensationalize it and maybe up the damages a tad (though it certainly isn't provable in any case). This announcement has no bearing on SK's lawsuit I don't think - after all, it should be clear as day if Epic missed the deadline on the 360.

According to 1Up, Midways CEO said that there have been technical issues with the Unreal Engine 3.0 which caused delays for Stranglehold and now Area 51 (coming out 3 weeks after the 360 version) and Ut3. However he says that the technical issues have been "ironed out" and after UT3 the PS3 versions of games using the engine will be released at the same time as the 360 versions.

Holy wrong-point-from-the-article Batman! The big deal is that Midway is having to revise their Q3 reportings because of this, indicating a massive difference in their valuation.

From TFA:

Publisher and developer Midway has announced that it is revising its Q3 estimates due primarily to delays of its headline PlayStation 3 titles

For its third quarter, Midway has revised its sales estimates downward from $50 million to $39 million, and revised full year sales down sharply from $225 million to $170 million

In its conference call with investors, Zucker admitted that the company has "encountered some bumps along the way" in creating its standardized engine technology that it hopes to use for its future titles, but said the the company "continues to believe it's the fastest path to market growth."

If you want an update on Midway Games stock, take a look over here [morningstar.com].

When were the sales numbers for the PS3 ever acceptable? With Sony being so confident before release, saying that everyone was going to want one, no matter how much it cost, just because it's a playstation, I would say that there numbers have always been pretty low.

When were the sales numbers for the PS3 ever acceptable? With Sony being so confident before release, saying that everyone was going to want one, no matter how much it cost, just because it's a playstation, I would say that there numbers have always been pretty low.

Their at 1/3 of what the 360 is at (4.6 mil sold vs ~12 mil sold; pre halo 3 numbers). They are "catching up" but not int he US market. Mostly Japan and other markets where the 360 doesn't expand as fast. The 360 is doing pitifully in Japan likel

I don't think Microsoft, or anyone else, seriously expected the 360 to do well in Japan - not after the Xbox, anyways.However, even in Japan, the PS3 is still struggling because of the Wii. The Wii's been going strong worldwide, but in Japan, it's burying the PS3 (and the 360) by a huge margin. This makes me wonder what the fate of all those JRPGs that were looking to the PS3 as their chosen platform. Will the 360 get more JRPGs this time around? Or will we see them all migrate to the Wii? The 360 alr

I don't think Microsoft, or anyone else, seriously expected the 360 to do well in Japan - not after the Xbox, anyways.However, even in Japan, the PS3 is still struggling because of the Wii. The Wii's been going strong worldwide, but in Japan, it's burying the PS3 (and the 360) by a huge margin. This makes me wonder what the fate of all those JRPGs that were looking to the PS3 as their chosen platform. Will the 360 get more JRPGs this time around? Or will we see them all migrate to the Wii? The 360 already h

"This makes me wonder what the fate of all those JRPGs that were looking to the PS3 as their chosen platform." "Or will we see them all migrate to the Wii?"
I would love to see the Wii get some good RPG's

Well, that's nice. However, if you are a serious FPS fan, you probably have a decent PC, so why would you buy UT for your game console? The PC version will have better graphics, not to mention an active user community generating tons of mods and new maps. I don't think either the PS3 or 360 version will have this sort of open access to user-created material (not to mention, the tools to create them).

And if you're not a "serious" FPS fan with a painfully expensive graphics card, or just like playing on a 42" screen rather than a 17" one, then the console versions will do just fine, thanks.

I'm perfectly prepared to admit I'm not a serious FPS fan, which is why I bought a 360 instead of a whole new PC (my CPU isn't up to much either) when I wanted to play Oblivion; I wanted to play PGR3 and Dead Rising as well. That doesn't mean I wouldn't like to play UT3 when it comes out for my platform.